New Commitee and Debating session

With Katie unfortunately having to leave the committee due to a heavy work schedule the position of funding became vacant and an election was called. the candidates were Jamie, Rebecca, Louise and Dan with Dan winning on the first preference thereby becoming our newest and oldest committee member.

Private Members Motions

With the election taking up a large proportion of the time, PMM’s took a back seat and we only had time for one, that being THW give tax breaks to couples with children rather than to married/civil unions

Gesa proposed the motion on the grounds of the policy was meant to encourage couples to have children and protect a society’s reproduction. Gesa stated that the policy would work better on the grounds of it effects more people and that marriage should no longer have a superior legal status than other long term relationships.

Tom then opposed stating many of the more confusing elements of implementation, questioning the policies actually effect by showing that modern relationships are far more complex than Gesa tried to make it seem.

James also opposed stating it was homophobic and exclusionary policy with evidence that was only understood by him and possibly people who didn’t hear it

Karolien, following the cool trend, further gave weight to the opposition by discussing another role the status quo policy had which was that married couples are cheaper to the state as they are less likely to be lonely and suffer in silence. on top of this she stated that the policy is a good for women as it gives men, who always run off at 45, a rational reason to stay married and this gave women a bargaining chip to keep the man in their clutches.

Finally Andrew stepped into aid Gesa with the first response in favour of the motion. stating if a women or a man needed a small financial reason to stay married then that was a bad relationship and should end. Further stating that the move to Gesa’s model would encourage bad relationships to end to make everyone happier and society better off. he also said something about children being useful.

and the motion passed but really the abstentions won, so yay for apathy